"Oho!' said the pot to the kettle;
"You are dirty and ugly and black!
Sure no one would think you were metal,
Except when you're given a crack."

"Not so! not so!" kettle said to the pot;
'Tis your own dirty image you see;
For I am so clean -without blemish or blot-
That your blackness is mirrored in me"

"Maxwell's Elementary Grammar" school book copyright 1904

No one has to tell you, these are trying times, (are you sick of those two words yet?) we can see it all around us. We are frustrated, we are afraid, we are unsure about the future. Heck, we're even unsure about the present. We don't know who we can trust, we are angry, hurt and tired from being lied to and manipulated. Sometimes the stress of it all can take its toll.

Those who go deeper than what is presented to the "main stream" know this even more acutely than the rest of the "sheeple." If one is not a sheeple, it can be very difficult to find people of like mind when even having a Ron Paul bumper sticker on one's car marks one as a possible terrorist. (BTW, I had 3 on my car, one on my front door and a front yard sign, and even helped paint a whole HOUSE!, so there!, :-P nyah) Which brings me to the point of this piece.

Most, if not all, of you realize the threats to Freedom of Speech these days. The "Hate Bill" going through Congress being the most current glaring example. The right to speak one's opinion is something that can not be given only to a select group of people or individuals. It goes across the board, or it doesn't go at all. If everyone does not have the same right to free thought and opinion, the word "free" can not be applied to the situation.

The ever bashed so-called Main Stream Media is a far cry from the journalism of the past. The MSM deserves pretty much all of the bashing it gets; its offenses are blatant and arrogant. After working in independent media for over a decade, I have learned to expect such behavior and antics from the MSM. They're dogs.